XIII
by YamiMerrk
Summary: It is a few days before the Gathering of Hell. The demons are prepared to raise hell in St. Curtis' Flower Festival- literally. However, a card, five tankards of ale, and a visit from a man thought dead set the sails of Hell's history on a new course. And with the mold of history broken, the power of the gods finds a new home- in a place most would never have guessed.
1. Chapter I

It was a fine evening in St. Curtis. The villagers were finishing their preparations for the Flower Festival, an event that should have marked the start of spring- if it weren't for the unfortunate delay that set its beginning in late spring. As the citizens made their rounds, ecstatic in anticipation, a single man leaned against the wall of a nearby building. His name was Heathcliff Sinclair- world traveler, husband to a sea witch of the Dragon Archipelago, boon of Siara the lynx guardian, and, courtesy of a prankster guardian, former mortori bird. After looking around at the soon-to-be festivities, he muttered "Bah" through the corner of his mouth not occupied by a cigarette and held the newspaper in his hands up to his face. As he scanned the page, detailing the destruction of Weyville and the rise of supernatural occurrences, he was caught off guard when a wright wyvern whisked through the air above him. "Damn wyverns," Cliff grumbled before looking down at what had fallen in his hands- a small card depicting a skeleton in robes using a scythe as an oar to row down a river at midnight, with a caption reading "XIII-Death". Curious, Cliff turned the card around to find that someone had written on the back using Angelic runes. The only thing Cliff recognized was the signature: "-XIII". Now that his interest had been peaked, Cliff walked back into the wagon he had parked in a nearby alleyway to find the only person he knew who could read it.

Her name was Kieri Suizahn, and she was an angel. Though she had been trained from childhood to fight the demonic forces of Syndel and flooded with propaganda, she had managed to fall in love with one- Buwaro Elexion, a fire demon who had been stranded in the Ring of the Slightly Damned for most of his life and was quite possibly the biggest failure Hell had ever produced, if you consider kindness and puppy-dog naivete to be weaknesses. Cliff found her sitting on one of the wagon's carpets reading from a short book which, judging by the cover, seemed to be about the history of St. Curtis.

"Hey, Kieri," Cliff said, "Something fell from a wright wyvern out there. It looks like someone wrote on the back of a card, but I can't read it. Think you could help?" Kieri looked up from her book, a tad suspicious of the "something" that Cliff had found.

"Of course. Let me see." As Kieri read the message on the back of the card, her eyes widened a bit, then narrowed in confusion.

"'Let it be known, I will be here soon... the efforts of soldiers gone past are in vain... as the tormented weep and the merry men swoon... they will all see that some are not quite slain?' I... I don't know what this could mean. Could it be...? No, that's not possible. The journal said that they saw him going to Death..." Kieri got up and put the card on a small end table face-up, revealing the skeletal oarsman.

"I think I will have to talk to Buwaro about this. If what I think is true, then... this changes too much for him to not know about it."

As Kieri left the wagon to find Buwaro, some distance away a strange figure entered the city. He was clothed in black robes with an elaborate tabard drooping over his shoulders and down his back like a cape, and he carried a scythe with a handle of dark oak and a steel blade bearing a carving of the affinity symbol for earth. The figure immediately made a beeline towards the nearest tavern, arriving as the twin moons of Medius began to leave the horizon. Leaving the scythe at the door, he seemed to ignore the odd stares from the patrons and sat close to the bar, the khamega bartender slowly walking over to him.

"Hey there, fella. You look like you've been a long way."

Before the bartender could continue, the figure turned his head and the young khamega found himself staring into the inside of the hood, the only things visible from behind its shadow being a single yellow eye on the left side and a pinpoint of bright blue light on the right. When the figure spoke, his voice seemed to skip the whole business with the ears and went straight to the brain, and sounded similar to the sound made by a cemetery with all the graves full and open in the middle of a hailstorm.

"I ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴀ ʟᴏɴɢᴇʀ ᴡᴀʏ ᴛʜᴀɴ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴀɴᴅ ɪɴ ʟɪғᴇ."

"Uh... okay then." The bartender shuffled a bit, the voice putting him on edge if only slightly. "What will you be having, sir?"

"I ᴡɪʟʟ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ғɪᴠᴇ ᴛᴀɴᴋᴀʀᴅs ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛʀᴏɴɢᴇsᴛ ᴀʟᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴘᴏssᴇss."

At this, several heads turned to face the figure. Among the whispers were "Is this guy serious...?", "He's gotta have a death wish.", and "Does he really think he can survive Agur's ale?"

"Erm... as you wish, sir," Agur muttered before fetching the aforementioned ale. It bubbled as it filled the tankards and when a bit of it leaked onto the floor, the spot where it landed went black. When the bartender began to speak as he approached the figure, the latter swiftly grabbed the tankards, covered them with leather to keep them from dripping, and slapped several gold coins down on the table before walking to the door.

"H-hey, wait a second! Patrons aren't allowed to leave the tavern with any drinks," the bartender yelled after him. The figure simply turned and gave him a stare that went on for a bit too long before speaking again.

"I ᴀᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴏɴ. Tʜɪs ɪs ᴀ ɢɪғᴛ." Instead of elaborating, the figure left the tavern and closed the door behind him before heading towards the place his sources told him was the base for one of Hell's generals. Upon arriving there, he pressed his ear against the outside and heard the voice of the general through the walls.

"...we can take our time getting ready for the gathering, then sack this place just like the other town. These idiots'll never see it coming! Besides, the festival will make it easier to meet some new traveling companions... get it?"

As the general's comrades sniggered with him, the figure took in a deep breath, pulled his hood down, knocked on the door several times in quick succession, then stepped back as the general busted it open.

"THE HELL DO YOU WA-" the general managed to shout before looking down at the face of the figure and leaving his voice to melt into a shocked stutter, his eyes wide as dishplates.

"They're gone, Iratu," Darius, the angel who had raised Iratu for two years in hell, said. "We've been fighting over empty thrones."


	2. Chapter II

A couple of minutes later, the two were sitting across from each other in the bar, Iratu on a table and Darius on a small chair, the others having been forced out of the room and upstairs by Iratu. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, then Iratu decided to break the silence.

"I- we thought you were dead."

Darius looked downwards slightly in apparent shame. "I know. I wanted to come back, but-"

"But what, Darius? What excuse could you conjure up for disappearing for a decade and a half?!" Iratu quickly forced himself to calm down once he'd seen Darius flinch.

"...you want an excuse. Fine. I will give you an excuse." Darius moved his robe over to reveal the tattered angel's clothes underneath, along with a horned skull bigger than his head. He unclipped it from his belt, brought it to his face, put it on- and Iratu found himself staring Death in the face, literally. He immediately yelped in surprise and leapt from the table, and for a few seconds he just stared at Darius/Death, shaking in shock, fear- and rage.

"Y-you... you've been Death... this whole time?" Though the illusion of Death blocked some of the finer emotions, Iratu could clearly see the guilt on Darius/Death's face.

"Yes. He told me that in exchange for you going into Hell and joining the army, I had to masquerade as him while he was away. He told me he would check up regularly, but he's been gone ever since we made the deal." Darius/Death began to shake in anger. "I had to pretend that I was the Grim Reaper for fifteen years, hiding myself from you every time Sakido came down from her roost, or Buwaro went to the shore, or you stumbled into the Ring piss-drunk, masking myself to keep you, all three of you, from knowing the truth, from being happy with me, together again..." By now Darius/Death was readily furious, to the point where Iratu was genuinely frightened by it. "...all so that Death could go out on a wild goose chase for two arrogant gods who did more harm than good just so that they could continue a stupid little war that wouldn't even have started if those damn gods weren't such IDIOTS!" Darius/Death spent another minute calming down, Iratu shaking in fear once more, and when his rage was replaced with brutal sobriety Darius removed the skull from his head and slumped back into his chair.

"Well, they haven't come back yet, and now you and Buwaro are here and Sakido is rotting in a tiny grave somewhere with a hole in her stomach. I've decided that I can't let these scuffles continue just so that one army can win a little fame and some trophies over killing millions of innocents from the other one, so I'm spreading the news. Maybe once the world realizes that there are no more gods we can get along better..."

Darius lowered his head to his hands, and after a second began to sob quietly. Iratu, still slightly afraid of Darius' uncharacteristic anger, shuffled over to him and nearly crushed him in a bear hug, loosening his grip a bit when Darius began to choke. When a few seconds had passed, the whole bar silent save for Darius' muffled crying, he looked up at Iratu's face.

"I...I just...I can't take it anymore, all this death, all this hatred, all this suffering...all over nothing, nothing at all..."

"I know..." Iratu let go of Darius before getting up and walking over to the staircase leading to the second floor and heading up, where Azurai, Tsavo, and Moonshade were waiting. He simply nodded to them, noting their heavily confused expressions, before speaking in a measured, deliberately emotionless tone that nevertheless betrayed his despair.

"We're cancelling the gathering. This war is over."

It was a few seconds before Azurai spoke up first.

"What do you mean, this war is over? Are we all just gonna stop fighting because some white-winged dumbass has a meltdown?"

"Yes, actually, we are. That 'white-winged dumbass' was the man that let me get here, and I don't think we should take what he has to say lightly." When Azurai began to shout again, Iratu held up a single claw. "Just think about it. All of our orders have been coming from the Council ever since the Medians stopped fighting for us. None of them are like Syndel's famous hit-and-run deals that got us this far- they're too accurate, too careful, too long. Not to mention the angels' newer war plans- they used to be all about careful staging, but now they're sending in squads to attack Hell on a daily basis. It's like our strategies have been totally reversed!"

"How can we trust him, General?" This time Tsavo was the one speaking. "He could be working for Heaven. Wouldn't they try to send in someone to convince us to surrender?"

"Listen, Tsavo, I'm pretty sure that the guy who decided to raise me like I was his child instead of driving a scythe blade through my spine the instant he saw me isn't in cahoots with the ones who would do it without a second thought. Besides, the only person who could make an illusion like the one in that weird skull of his is Death himself, and I think we'd know about him breaking his vow of neutrality."

Moonshade simply sat in a corner of the room, his tail swishing back and forth a bit as his less-than-sane mind mulled over the possibility of surrender. As Tsavo and Azurai looked at one another, dread building up in them, the latter broke the silence.

"Iratu... how are we supposed to live without war? The only thing we've been raised to do is fuck up the angels."

Iratu sighed- he'd been thinking about it as well, and unlike most demons he had decided it would be better without any battles.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to play it by ear. They've probably gotten the memo as well." Iratu stood up and walked to the staircase again, but before he went down to meet Darius again he turned to his former lieutenants and saluted them.

"Good luck, men. You're all honorably discharged, if honor means anything to you." When Iratu came back down to Darius, he saw that Darius was significantly calmer- and had brought in several tankards of ale so full of alcohol that just smelling it made Iratu's thoughts a bit fuzzy.

"Heh. Looks like you decided that the surrender calls for a celebration, eh?" Darius, though he still looked a bit depressed, managed to smile."Yes, I suppose so." As Iratu picked up a tankard, he clinked his and Darius' together. "A toast to peace, and a chance that this place'll actually get better."

And they drank.


	3. Chapter III

Buwaro lay on the blanket that served as his bed in the Sinclairs' wagon, staring at the ceiling with Snowy snoring quietly on his right and Rhea snoring significantly more loudly on his left. How could he sleep, with the thought that the man who had raised him if only for a little while and whom he had thought dead was here, now, and looking for him? He didn't know how he would respond, to be honest- would he be happy because of his reunion, or angry because of Darius' seeming betrayal? He would have to think about it more.

Not right now, though, because someone had just knocked at the door of the wagon.

Buwaro quickly got up, carefully so as not to wake up Snowy or Rhea, and went over to the door and peeked through the tiny hole set into it, only to find himself looking into the shadow of a hood broken only by a bright blue point of light on the shadow's right side. Cautiously, he opened the door, flinching as it creaked, and stood staring in quiet fear at the robed figure before him, the alleyway blocked by the figure's enormous wings- wings which appeared to be charred at the tips of its feathers, as if they had been caught in a fire.

"H...hello, sir?" What Buwaro did not expect from the figure was a voice similar to the sound of two granite slabs rubbing together with a corpse in between them.

"ᴡᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ sᴘᴇᴀᴋ ᴏᴜᴛsɪᴅᴇ." Before Buwaro could question the figure, it grabbed his wrist and pulled him out, closing the door behind them.

"W-what? Where are we going?"

"ᴛᴏ ᴀ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ɴᴏᴛ ʙᴇ ɪɴ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴏғ ᴅɪsᴄᴏᴠᴇʀʏ." Over the course of a couple of minutes, the figure dragged the struggling Buwaro through the city and into a tavern with all the lights out and the stench of corpses filling its air. By now Buwaro was shaking in fear for his life, but he kept himself from crying out for fear of what the figure might do to him. The figure closed the door to the bar behind him as a fire demon dragged two corpses away from the back of the reception desk. Though Buwaro's mind was clouded with fright, he could vaguely remember the fire demon, though not enough to place a name on him.

The figure sat down on one of the chairs strewn about the bar, bending over slightly and pointing its head to the floor. Before Buwaro could break the slience, the figure beat him to it.

"ɪ ᴀᴍ sᴏʀʀʏ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴍᴇᴇᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs, ʙᴜᴡᴀʀᴏ."

As quickly as you could snap your fingers, Buwaro's fear was replaced with mild confusion, followed by a mixture of joy, surprise, and anger.

"...Darius?" The figure sighed, straightened up, and pulled its hood off, revealing the face of an angel- well, a large protion of one, anyways, since the skin on the right side of Darius' face was mauled from the forehead to the jawline. Simply looking at it made Buwaro wince.

"Yes, Buwaro. I know that it must have been hard on you for all these years and... I'm not sure that an apology could do it justice, but I'll try. I'm sorry, Buwaro, I really am. All those years, watching you alone in the Ring, unable to go to you and help you, it..." Darius paused to wipe some tears off his face. "I just couldn't stand it. The pain of being alone out there, only seeing dead Medians for fifteen years, and now Sakido's dead, and... and..." While Buwaro was definitely expecting sadness, what he didn't expect was for Darius to suddenly pounce on him and tackle him to the floor in a hug that nearly crushed Buwaro's ribs.

"Urk! Can't... breathe!" Once Darius had loosened his grip enough to allow Buwaro to move a bit, Buwaro simply laid there for a second before looking down to Darius.

"I... I don't know if I can forgive you yet. But... I'll try." As Buwaro and Darius got up, someone else knocked at the door of the tavern, and within a heartbeat Darius was swinging it open to reveal three demons- one water, one wind, and one fire. Without any words passed between them, Darius took the multicolor gem from the wind demon's hand and closed the door before walking up the stairs leading to the second floor, leaving Buwaro in the empty tavern.

Once he was on the second floor, Darius went over to where Iratu had tried and failed to lay on a bed in a way that would not break it and kicked him lightly on the head. Iratu, waking up from the mild buzz he had received from a few sips of the ale, grumbled as a slight ache took hold in his head.

"Whaddaya want? ...oh, it's just you, Darius. What's that thing you have there?"

"I'm not sure. One of your scouts found it and I took it from him. It seems to hold some kind of energy, but-"

Darius and Iratu were suddenly blown away as the gem exploded, filling the room with light and sending whatever energy was in it soaring through the air.

_The power took to the sky of St, Curtis, its freedom now renewed. The gods were gone, and the power had to find another home now. It screamed over the houses of the city, weaving through the branches of the Great Tree, before it found its new owner._

_It lunged, and struck home._

_And in her sleep, Rhea Snaketail shifted and shivered from the power of creation._


	4. Chapter III Interlude

_As Rhea wandered the odd, backwards landscape, she began to realize that something was wrong here. She seemed taller than usual, and she couldn't even control her tail as she normally could. Not to mention the growing, bunny-shaped shadow above her-_

_Before the giant rabbit could crush her, however, she was sent tumbling into an empty white space, back in her normal form and with a strange throbbing in her blood, some sort of... spirit, it seemed._

_She was distracted from this as several human figures appeared in front of her- no, make that several hundred- all dressed in white robes covering everything from their necks to their feet, and featureless white masks covering their faces, which didn't seem to muffle their speech as they endlessly debated on subjects Rhea couldn't even begin to name, let alone fathom. Three of these figures turned from their discussions with the others to look at her- well, point their masks in her direction in any case._

"_Ah," said the one in the middle, the voice smooth and reverberating, "we have received another one, I see."_

"_It is hardly a matter of surprise, Yeshua. There have been more and more demigods since the rise of Reason," said the figure to the right of "Yeshua"._

"_Woah, hold on a second," Rhea said as the figures turned to her instantly. "You mean that I'm gonna turn into a Guardian or something?" The figures turned to each other for a moment, as if the mere question was confusing._

"_Not necessarily," the figure to Yeshua's left answered slowly. "You could also potentially be a Savior, or a Destroyer, or even a Creator. It depends mainly on your personality, but there are other factors we still do not understand fully." At this, Yeshua scoffed._

"_Come now, that is ridiculous. Is it not written that Yahweh-El knows all that can be known?"_

"_Is it not also written, Yeshua, that Terra is flat? If we are to take everything written as true, then we would expect to see wizards and barbarians, robotic apocalypses, alien cruise ships and the like on a regular basis." This comment seemed to shut Yeshua up._

"_So, erm, am I gonna remember this when I wake up?" Rhea asked, the satisfaction from seeing the smug Yeshua stood up only partially driving away the sense of wrongness._

"_I think not," the left figure said. "You do not appear to be an oracle of any sort, so your power will most likely come as... a bit of a shock. There is nothing to worry about, however- I am sure that everything will be sorted out in due time."_

"_Come now, Siddhartha, you say that about everything," said Yeshua, the dream beginning to fade away._

"_Hey, wait! How am I supposed to control my superpowers or whatever they are?"_

_The fading image of the right figure shrugged. "I am sure there are limits in place in your word, whatever it may be. Take care now, Serpens Cauda."_

And Rhea awakened.


	5. Chapter IIII

When Rhea had woken up, she found that instead of looking up at the roof of the wagon she was currently looking down- at a tablecloth.

"Zzz...Wha? Hey, where'd this table come from?" She looked up to find herself in front of Heathcliff, who seemed less than pleased with her drowsiness.

"The restaurant owner down the street owed me a favor, so I borrowed it from him." Still sleepy for some reason, Rhea turned away and yawned.

"Why?" "For the festival! You three agreed to help me with my shop while Miranda is at the midwife's, remember? Cliff looked up at the pink flowers that were beginning to fall from the branches covering almost all of the city. "I just wish we could have borrowed a canopy to block these annoying flowers."

Before Heathcliff could continue to speak, Rhea felt something suddenly nudge her foot and looked under the table to find a huge, folded square of red fabric. "What, you mean like this one?" she said, holding up one of its corners. Heathcliff simply stared at it in surprise, as well as Kieri.

"Wait, why is that under there? We just had it set up!" "Search me. I don't even remember it being under there. It just sort of... showed up." Heathcliff paused as he took this in.

"Well, even if it wasn't there before, I guess we should use it- it doesn't look magical or anything. Get up, we're gonna set this thing up."

Following the setup of the canopy, an almost unfortunate incident involving Buwaro and a fire crystal, and some customers, a large, thuggish khamega showed up, his orange/yellow bandana contrasting with his purple/green hide and his eyes on the golden ball-shaped dragon that had been given to Kieri by Buwaro the day before.

"**How much fer th' golden wright wyvern?**" Behind Kieri, Cliff shrugged. "It's not mine. Ask the blue-haired girl." Kieri picked the dragon up and turned to the khamega, a tad nervous. "Uh... um... I-I'm sorry, but he's not for sale-" "**She.**" By now, Kieri was even more nervous. "Huh?" "**That golden wyvern is a girl. Ya don't even know that?**" Kieri looked down at the blushing dragon, which was covering its face with its wing. "A girl, huh-" "**IDIOT! Ya don't even know what it is you've got!**" Grumbling, the khamega pulled out two silver pieces. "**Grr... I'll give ya two silvers. It's more th'n ya deserve fer it.**" The khamega certainly expected Kieri to become even more nervous.

What he didn't expect was for two sharp claws to suddenly reach around and touch his throat.

"Hey there, ya bastard," said the demon who was currently poised to slice the khamega's neck like ham- the same demon, in fact, who had dragged away the human bodies in the tavern from the night before. "Here's a deal for ya! You get the hell outta here and I might consider not slicing you to bits. Sound good?"

The khamega, having gone from predator to prey instantly, began to shiver. "**Y-yeah, sure, j-just take th' claws off my throat.**" The demon doing so, the khamega took in a beep breath, turned, and proceeded to run like hell. Kieri, Buwaro, and Rhea simply stood still in surprise and slight awe as Cliff walked over to the demon, the latter lighting a cigarette with a puff of fire breath.

"Erm...thanks for getting rid of that cheat, sir," said Cliff, holding out a hand for the demon to shake. He did so.

"Yeah, no problem. You see shitheads-" this caused Kieri and Buwaro to flinch -"like him all over the place in Hell. Turns out they value their lives over their money most of the time- not like it does them any good by then, heh."

"Um, yes, I can imagine. It's kind of odd that you showed up just as he was trying to cheat her, though."

"Eh, I just stepped in. Truth is, my commanding officer, the bastard, sent me over here to watch you for a while for some reason." The demon began to grumble in anger. "I swear to Syndel, it's like I get sent to every boring fucking job every time it pops up."

"Erm, sorry, I guess. Hope it gets better."

"Heh, thanks," the demon mumblied before going to walk off, getting stopped by Rhea a few seconds afterwards. "Hey, wait a second-" The demon immiedately turned to her, flying into a second-long rage. "_**THE FUCK DO YA WANT NOW?!**_" While this caused Kieri and Buwaro to coil back in fear, Rhea didn't budge in the slightest.

"Who is this 'commanding officer' you're talking about? Sounds too official for the likes of you." The demon growled, barely suppressing his fury and preventing a second outburst at Rhea's final remark. "Grr... his name's Iratu. He sent me over here after some angel came over and-"

The demon stopped as he saw another demon walking towards him, this one appearing to be a water demon similar to an anglerfish. The water demon handed the fire demon a slip of paper that looked to be written in dried blood.

"The boss needs you down at the Coiled Cobra, Azurai."

"Why? I thought the whole fucking army was-"

"It doesn't matter, he still needs you down there. You don't wanna know what he'll do if you don't get your ass over there." Azurai growled once more before running off, the water demon joining him- as well as Buwaro, Kieri, and Rhea.

"Hey, wait! Where are you people going?!" Cliff shouted to them, now standing alone in the middle of the street. He didn't receive an answer, as by then the trio were out of earshot.

The trio didn't waste any breath on talking, only running after Azurai and the water demon before arriving at the Coiled Cobra, Buwaro and Kieri running around an edge to avoid detection while Rhea scrambled to a window. She took one look inside- and found herself staring Death in the face. Again.


End file.
